Anselm combines the filmmaker’s technical mastery with a deep curiosity for his subject to create an experience that is as thought-provoking as it is immersive.

Even as it endeavors to ultimately subvert a few Archie Comics tropes and deepen a few of its initial teen-movie stereotypes, The Archies feels reluctant to instigate lasting change in its characters, like a TV series preparing for a long run. Here’s the thing, though: I’d happily spend another two and a half hours with The Archies, so long as it kept the music going.

Entertaining and surprisingly gory, though not particularly ingenious, The Sacrifice Game is a fairly enjoyable and under 100-minute caper about incompetent demon-worshippers led by Disney’s own Prince Aladdin, Mena Massoud, and the power of friendship between women.

The wreck of Wonka stings because of the clarity with which we see King’s eye for visual comedy and lavish setpiece staging, squandered on a movie where branding was always going to eclipse beauty.

Through Ellis’ eyes, it’s impossible to stay uninvested. We watch, stomach bottoming out, as the law is repealed with a simple vote. We watch, sitting on our hands, as the new amendment is introduced.

Everyone seems like they’re genuinely having fun, but they’re trapped in a less interesting movie than the one they could have made, the one just out of frame.

Harboring inventive visuals and a heartrending message, Wish has enough heart going for it. What a shame, then, that it wasn’t confident enough in itself to try for success without these clichés.

American Symphony itself is at its most mundane when focused on the professional life of the rousing, youthful musical multihyphenate. And, because it builds its structure around the creation and premiere of his first symphony, much of the film bundles that mundanity into the kind of behind-the-scenes footage accompanying a concert doc.

Much like the movie that started it all, Godzilla Minus One cements itself among the best entries in the series by successfully operating as both an evocative disaster flick and a more human-oriented drama, using each half to bolster the other.

Deep Sea‘s lavish visuals bring to life its fantastical aquatic daydream.

Even when it’s not selling its past self, Good Burger 2 is selling something. It’s what makes it a hard movie to root for, even when it lucks into saying the right things: It tosses one money-grubbing trend in the trash while ordering all the others directly off the menu.

There’s an inspiring story at the center of Next Goal Wins, but that story deserves better.

Maybe we know Hite only slightly better when The Disappearance of Shere Hite ends than when it starts, but because of Newnham’s rigor, we certainly understand her better.

Monster’s mystery is one only in the ways that all of our experiences are inherently mysterious to others; its drama is devastating, a tragically inevitable snowball rolled by this existential loneliness; its warmth is gloriously defiant of this fate.

The themes of Leave the World Behind—and the place where everything ends up, which is funny and charming but a little unfinished—aren’t as tautly composed as the body encasing them. But considering ideas of “us against them” in times of crisis, and who exactly is “us,” and who is “them,” are worth considering in our current time.

With its traditions captured in delicate, sweaty vignettes by filmmaker Anna Hints, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood’s anecdotes fill your lungs and engulf you, until its women’s secrets drip down your body.

Leo proved to be a perfect, lighthearted watch on a rainy evening that left us with a feeling of bonhomie before switching off the lights for the night.

Though it opens with a strong and colorful idea, by trying to touch on too many complex ideas at once, the final impression left by Stamped from the Beginning remains smudged and unclear.

Roth and Rendell find the perfect balance of humor and horror, understanding the absurdity of their premise while still making their characters buy into the world. What that creates is a film embracing its own silliness, free of irony, while avoiding the pitfalls of oversentimentality.

Marshall, Higgins and Herlihy are funny and likable; I’d love to see them in a more deserving comedic vehicle. Instead, this is an SNL movie that will get belly laughs from some and be largely forgotten by others.

It is less a rich, twisty drama than a journey through a historical figure’s greatest hits, punctuated by more engrossing moments of vulnerability and intimacy that only leave you wishing there were more.

Sure the entire plot of Trolls Band Together and the movie’s best jokes are revealed in the trailer. But the movie’s target audience is the same audience that can watch Frozen 20 times. They certainly aren’t going to mind that they already know what is going to happen.

Bone-dry yet filled with yearning, Aki Kaurismäki’s Finnish rom-com is a charming tale of persistence amid chaos.

When its pet topics enter into conversation with one another, revealing a throughline underscoring the basic rights of everyone working on a film project, Subject cruises along. In the film’s most propulsive sections, passion is as paramount as self-awareness, with vigorously cut documentary snippets affectionately emphasizing its self-critical points.

Its dedication to Long’s point-of-view is admirable, but Lee’s filmmaking hits the brakes like a student driver, sacrificing what made the framing narrative enticing in the first place.

Festive horror is a notorious subgenre, with last year’s runaway success Violent Night scratching this itch for many—to say nothing of classics like 1974’s Black Christmas. It’s A Wonderful Knife sports an equally clever parody title, but has little else going for it, coasting on the premise of Frank Capra’s classic and failing to stand out among its predecessors.

Even with its last act problems, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is an effective return to the cautionary tale that is Panem.

While the first third establishes the premise with a lot of promise and a compelling backstory, the rest of the film can’t rise above perfunctory cat-and-mouse dynamics that lack urgency and emotional stakes.